Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday June 12, 2008 @03:02PM
from the because-an-army-marches-on-its-back dept.

wifeoflurker writes "Can someone give me recommendations for a desk chair to give my husband as a Father's Day gift? He currently uses a cheap one he got from Office Max, but I want him to have a really comfortable one. He spends his life in this chair (coding and lurking on Slashdot). I don't have time to research good chairs on the internet today (I'm chasing my 10 month old around, and she seems to get into the most mischief when I'm staring at the computer screen), so I figured a few folks here might share their personal recommendations." Has there been any great progress in the state of the art (of sitting) since the last time readers sought recommendations for back-friendly chairs a few years back, or the perfect computer chair nearly a decade back? Is there even such a thing as a back-friendly chair, or should we all be in astronaut-style lounge workstations?

All joking aside, can we put the "Slashdotters never get girls" meme out to pasture? I've been married for six years (and reading Slashdot for ten) and have two kids, and there's plenty others like me. The joke was kinda funny the first eleventy billion times it was made, but it's old and busted now. It's not that I'm offended by it (I'm not), it's that it's just... tired.

Microsoft is remarkably family friendly, compared to other tech companies (including Google). If you ever plan on actually having a family, or if your current employer does not give a shit if you ever see your children, Microsoft is a great place to work.

15 years ago, when old timers like me were sweating to ship, it was practically a divorce announcement a week, in my group. Weeks before deadlines, sleeping in our offices, doing build, after build after build, nobody would have considered Redmond to be family friendly.

In fact, if you needed family time, you were considered a bit suspect, or a whiny little bitch.

But, in those days, we shipped indeed, and our stock price was ever-rising. Back then, you could even tell an under-achiever that they sucked without fear of a lawsuit.

But, Win95 shipped, Exchange shipped, Office shipped, and left a trail of dead or dying competitors in our wake.

15 years ago, when old timers like me were sweating to ship, it was practically a divorce announcement a week, in my group. Weeks before deadlines, sleeping in our offices, doing build, after build after build, nobody would have considered Redmond to be family friendly.
In fact, if you needed family time, you were considered a bit suspect, or a whiny little bitch.

That's really a personal choice. 15 Years ago, I was in the same position, and made a choice to work normal hours, get married, learn to SCUBA dive, take vacations and have a life.

This magic was accomplished by telling my manager "No, I will not work nights, weekends and holidays."

Today, I'm still married, own a software business, have friends, take vacations and life is good. In fact, if I interview someone and they say they're willing to sell their soul to me, I won't hire them. I want people who have lives. They're happier, more productive and more stable.

I'm constantly searching for 20-somethings who are more concerned about how their eventual children will live in 2020, than how they themselves are living right now. These people are getting harder and harder to find

They're getting harder to find because nobody wants a life that sucks. And if you fone someone who does, they're typically damaged in some way.

Its a different mindset these days, and while you think your folks are productive, I would comfortably assume that were you up against us on a project, my people would eat your lunch. We work until we ship. THEN we play.

Knock yourself out. I don't sell code, I sell ideas and business processes and charge based on the value I provide to the client, not the hours worked or lines of code. In fact, the actual coding tends to be relatively minimal.

If you need to change diapers between builds, you probably don't want to work for me.

That would account for your hiring difficulties. The only thing more seductive to a programmer than money and toys is having an actual life. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that taking his girlfriend out for a weekend in the mountains is more rewarding than sitting under a flourescent light chasing a segfault at 3am.

I have dived the wrecks of Belize, with the NEW wife (younger and cuter, since I am smarter and richer) and have a great time. Like you say, its a choice. You are happy with yours, I am ecstatic with mine. Good luck.

It's nice diving. I saw my first ray there, but I like Tobermory and the St. Lawrence better. The tropical wrecks deteriorate too quickly.

Good luck with the money and wife. I suspect by the time you hit your 60's you'll wish you had been a little less "driven." The "Trophy Wife" is a little sad; partially because when you marry someone it's supposed to be forever and partially because you now have a wife that married you for money and will leave when you lose yours or someone else comes along with more.

I know there are a lot of contenders in this arena -- and honestly, at the price it seems very high.

But think about it -- you own a car that you like. You spend maybe what, an hour, or two a day in it? You spend maybe $400 for the car payment plus insurance and gas.

And you sit in a chair for 5-7 hours a day. You should make a good investment for the sake of your back, your butt, and your comfort. I have the Aeron and the only quip I have with it, is that it doesn't match the height of my desk (which is actually a writing desk, incorrect height for a mouse/keyboard).

I like the Aeron -- it has a lot of adjustments, it's built very solid, it has a good warranty and you can get them serviced a LOT of places (casters and such). It's NOT cheap, but refer to what I said earlier on why you SHOULD spend the money.

I have to second the Herman Miller Aeron. I finally bit the bullet and bought one and I've really noticed a difference with respect to fatigue. I would say I can write for about 2 more hours then usual with the Aeron.

No one wants to invest in a good chair but you have to think about the fact that your chair is in use from the time you sit down at your computer to the time you get up. It's the most utilized piece of computer gear you have. A lot of people skimp on monitors too even though it's the second most utilized piece of hardware.

A solid chair and a solid monitor then keyboard/mouse goes very very far in keeping you productive.

I've used the Aeron, and I like my Mirra just as much. The only way I'd get an Aeron right now is if I were very tall/short (thus making the sizing thing worthwhile) -- for 90% of us, the Mirra works just fine and it significantly less expensive.

What the parent poster said, by the way? Completely dead-on. There are two bits of furniture you shouldn't skimp on, and they're your bed and your office chair.

As a contractor of many years, I refuse to take second hand chairs as my main post. Sure I will sit in any chair for an hour, but fuck me if I have to smell other peoples farts after sitting in one long enough to get it warm.I was once asked "Why are you so demanding about the chair? You will be here for only three months or so!". I gave the manager a quizzical look and asked. "Say.. Do you ever hide your flatulance into your cushiony chair?" (Yeah, not from US. I guess that would be waaaayyyy too offensive

This is embarrassing, but two years ago I had surgery on my butt. I can't remember the name of the condition, but it has generally been reserved for truckdrivers. Basically what happens is a hair in your crack becomes ingrown because you sweat (I live in a sub-tropical environment and at the time, wasn't wearing 100% cotton underwear), and sitting down all day the hair grows inward. Long story short, you go to *extreme* pain very quickly and hence I had a lot of morphine (which is good) and a general anesthetic and surgery to remove about 60ml of pus (which was bad). I had an additional hole in my arse about the size of my fist (poor choice, perhaps a tennis ball).

The next worst thing was the healing process. You have to regularly wash the wound out three times daily to prevent the condition occurring again until the wound completely heals. That takes about 4 months! I'm stoked that my partner is a nurse, but it's not really all as glamorous as it sounds.

You do not want this condition! Wear 100% cotton underwear, pants that breath, and a chair that does not allow you to lean back. (Found the condition - pilonidal cyst - beware the gross pictures)

The company i worked at about 8 years ago bought new Aeron chairs for everyone in the company, and i couldn't stand them. The metal frame with webbing felt rather harsh and unnatural, and that was before i tried crossing one of my legs under the other (right ankle under left thigh or vice versa) which was actually painful in the Aeron. I felt uncomfortable sitting in my chair for the entire rest of my time at that company. The only benefit was that they let us take our old chairs home if we wanted them, and

i tried crossing one of my legs under the other (right ankle under left thigh or vice versa) which was actually painful in the Aeron.

The reason you hate it is the exact reason I love it. On most chairs, when I try to fold my ankle under my thigh, the armrests get in the way and I get cramped into the chair. With my Aeron, the armrests drop LOW, so my knee can rest on top of the armrest, and work as an armrest itself.I'm in it up to ten hours a day and haven't had the slightest bit of discomfort.

I've owned an Aeron for several years. I used to sit in it for 8 to 10 hours a day working. After a couple of years I started experiencing the symptoms of RLS. Very annoying. I went to docs for the usual diagnostics/drugs. Nothing really helped.

One day my wife was talking to the manager of a Relax The Back store and my RLS came up. Upon hearing that I used an Aeron chair he said "That could be the problem. The way the front area of the chair where the legs go over is designed can cause problems with circulation and such." (I heard this second hand from my wife). I switched to a more traditional office chair. Within a month my RLS symptoms were gone.

So no scientific proof and I haven't felt like switching back to see the Aeron was the problem. But I'm a lot happier now.

I sit in a Steelcase Leap for 7-10 hours a day. I picked it up from a used office supply place for something like $100, and I love it. It's not as adjustable as a lot of other chairs, but the lower back support is perfect (I tend to have problems there), and the tiny arm-rests are very comfortable when I'm juggling keyboards. Highly recommended, at least from my perspective.(The latter being the real problem; we all have subtly different preferences and physiologies, so nothing is perfect for everyone)

So true, people have their priorities so out of whack, they won't even blink at spending $30k on a car they will use 2 hours a day, but gawk at the notion of buying a $2000 monitor or $1000 chair that you use 10 hours a day. I spent almost $1000 on my Aeron, got all the options, chrome, I haven't sat in a better chair.

The 2 best ways to spend money in your office: 1) monitor and 2) chair!

I've worked a couple places with Aeron chairs, and while I think they are probably the best chairs I've used, I have noticed that they seem to wear out rather quickly (or maybe it's just my big ass?). I don't have any experience with the other status-symbol-ergo-chairs like the Humanscale Freedom, so I don't know if the Aeron is especially good, or just that ~$1000 buys a whole lot of chair. Most of what I have to compare them to are chairs from Office Depot and such.By the way, this might not be the best c

If you're speccing your own chair, be aware there are several different kinds of armrests, including one with a built-in mousepad on the end. I recommend the leather-covered ones as the stock plastic ones have a tendency to give my forearms proto-bedsores during crunch times.

Also, be aware that the rough texture of the Pellicle fabric will wear out your husband's pants in the seat faster than you may be accustomed to.

The Aeron destroys my back. I don't get enough shoulder support. Maybe I just have a freakishly tall torso or something, but I need my shoulders to bear the brunt of the weight of my back. My lower back, at this point, cannot support my weight while sitting anymore (2 microdisectomies, two more blown discs above those - it's not a pretty sight!)

I have an Aeron, and it's not bad, but there are too many adjustments that are done by friction, and I haven't ever been able to get it to stay in place properly when I get it set up properly. I finally gave up the arms as a bad job and took them off. But I still can't tilt the seat forward the right amount.

The one thing the Aeron is great for is that it's a mesh, so you can sit on it when you get back from a bike ride without feeling like you're going to soak the padding with your manly sweat. This is the reason I haven't just spaced the thing.

I hear that the new Aerons are better, but I haven't personally seen any evidence that this is true. So I would really check this out carefully before buying.

And honestly, I'd run this by him. You're going to spend a lot of money to get him a good chair, and chairs are a very personal choice - what works for one person won't work for another. Also a lot of advice you get on ergonomics from chair stores isn't correct, so if you buy a chair based on that advice, you could wind up with a $500 albatross.

What I would personally recommend is that you just tell him you want to get him a chair, and research it with him. If you don't have time, get him something else. This is a really nice idea for a gift, but it's not an easy one.

What I would personally recommend is that you just tell him you want to get him a chair, and research it with him.

If you go this route, I would put a picture of an Aeron in a card and give it to him. Let him know that you'll buy it for him, if that's the chair he decides to get.

I learned that trick from a buddy of mine who's mom would always get pissed off at the gifts family would buy her. She would want a stove, and they bought her a stove, but it wasn't the stove she wanted. Next year she wanted a dishwasher, so they gave her a picture of a dishwasher, and let her pick it out herself.

Personally I think all of these are merely the best attempt at the wrong solution. The best thing for your back (and I know this because it's what I use), is a stand up desk [wikipedia.org]. You get used to it quite quickly and you feel all the better for it. Many or most are adjustable so you can lower them to chair height when you want to. But you very quickly find it odd and sluggish to sit down.

Try looking at a Herman Miller Mirra instead. I tested both of them at a showroom, and I preferred the Mirra because it has a firm plastic back instead of the mesh back (it still has the mesh seat). To me, the back felt less squishy with better support. It costs less, too.

I've been using mine extensively for a couple of years now, and I can say that it's the only chair that I've ever used that doesn't suck.

At home I have a herman miller caper task chair (the wheeled, height adjustable one) and I really like it. A lot of people dislike the fact that it is hard but really a well designed chair shouldnt need excessive padding to be comfortable as long as it is a good shape (sizing and proper fit in a chair is important...why do you think the aeron comes in so many sizes). The incredibly long warranty is great too, the back started to have troulbe after a move damaged it and it was replaced free of charge inclu

Aeron chairs come in three different sizes. You might have tried one that didn't fit you. I only found this out because I moved to a new job where everyone had Aerons and I hated mine at first. My desk came with a size A chair, and I needed a size C. Once I got fitted for the correct size chair, it was a lot better. There is a size chart on the right hand side of this page: http://www.hermanmiller.com/CDA/SSA/Product/0,,a10-c440-p8,00.html [hermanmiller.com]

this might sound a little crazy but a pilates / swiss ball is the absolute daddy. Once you are used to it its really very comfortable, balancing is fairly easy and kind of forces you into the right posture.

I found the kneeling chair [wikipedia.org]. It looks like it would be really uncomfortable, and with no back support you would get tired, but something about it just puts your entire body in the right position.

I have tried one of the models with a fixed bottom frame (or whatever you call that in English), and it was not nearly as comfortable. A few hours, and my shins hurt. I think the angles were a little different, but the main reason was probably that it couldn't rock so I had to sit in the exact same position all the time.

One word of warning:It took me several years to get used to the chair.

There was a study done a couple years ago using MRI scans that showed the best posture is actually slouching back in the chair with the feet flat on the floor. Weight is taken off the spine. Exercise balls, in my opinion, are lousy chairs. You can still sit with terrible posture, they provide no back support (leaving your spine compressing all day), and can be dangerous. Pop them all!

I know everyone is different, but I have used an excercise ball at home, and really like it. It forces good posture, (one of the biggest problems with back pain) and even works the abs and back muscles to stay sitting up straight. At a former company I worked at, I had a pretty cool chair with no back (until we hired somebody with an acutal medical back problem, and they gave it to him), it had 2 "pads" one was lower, for your knees, and the upper pad was for sitting on. It worked similar to the excercise ball.

Those kneeling chairs were really awesome for me...when I was 20. Too much coding on one of them later in life left both my knees and my hips in bad shape from all the pressure it was putting on them.

There's actually a big clue to found in that observation: many people pick a chair based on it not aggrevating whatever their current symptoms are. But if it instead aggrevates others, that's not really an improvement.

I've recently done a lot of research about this. Apparently, sitting on an exercise ball is good for very short periods of time, but very bad for you back over long periods. The lack back support and angle of your pelvis causes a lot of compression on your lower vertebra.

Car seats are, after all, designed to be used for hours at a time. I've always wanted to stop by the junk yard, find a nice seat, and mount/weld it to some kind of base. The reclining feature would be nice for those all-nighters.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-06-07-office-fit_x.htm [usatoday.com]"Sitting at their desks is about the last thing workers would do in Dr. James Levine's office of the future.Dr. James Levine keeps a 1 mph pace on his treadmill while checking his e-mail.at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.Instead of being sedentary in front of their computers, they'd stand. But instead of standing still, they'd walk on a treadmill. And instead of meeting around a conference table, they'd talk business while walking laps on a track."

But just a standing desk with a tall stool to alternate with can work wonders for back pain and good posture.The walking is probably better on the knees though.

Humanscale Freedom chair (with headrest option). About the only way to spend more on a computer chair than an Aeron, but it's a better chair. Seat stays level and slides when you lean forward/back, and headrest automatically comes up, so it's easy to adjust position comfortably.

I 2nd this. I got one about 6 months ago and have had much less back trouble. My brother has something from Knoll that he likes a lot, but it costs even more than the Freedom (it is leather though). BTW, the Freedom chair is what Bill Maher uses on his show.

It's so much simpler and cost effective than the Aeron. The chair moves with you,the seat pan, the lower lumbar support, it's great. It's arm rests are fully adjustable, vertically, forward/back, and side to side. The lower back support actually works and doesn't feel like someone stuck a piece of wood behind your back. You can adjust it's height and it's depth. I've owned one now for 2 years now and have no regrets. I have back problems and this is the only chair I can sit in without being miserable when I use a computer.

If you really want to go all out, get the forward tilt option. The onlyreason I didn't is that the lead time was an extra 1-2 weeks. I should alsomention that it was really easy to setup. It came in one big box and in two parts, the seat and base. All I had to do was drop the seat onto the base and it was ready, no tools were necessary.

I recommend the Humanscale Freedom Chair with Headrest [humanscale.com]. I ahve used one for eight years following back surgery, and I love it. I prefer it to the Aeron. It comes in lots of color/fabric choices and is virtually indestructible. The only drawback is price. List is about $1,000, but you can find it for $150-200 less on the net. It also looks cool.

There ARE competitors to the Aeron, in many other styles... Check out Knoll Office Seating, the ergonomics that go into these chairs is really amazing. If you can stomach the prices, then by all means, your back WILL thank you at the end of a long day.
Make sure you buy a properly sized chair (*the aeron comes in 3 sizes) and if you buy some other chair, make sure he adjusts it to where his posture is set right.
I have a couple of Knoll Life chairs at home, I can personally recommend them as super comfortable, and they come in a million different color combinations. Oh.. And they'll outlast anything from ikea or office depot.

+1 Steelcase LeapAerons are pretty, and had sort of a cachet to them for a while, but I never found them especially comfortable. I was fairly indifferent to most chairs I had tried... until I started at Google, and sat in a Leap for the first time. I ordered one for home that week.

I'm habitually fidgety, constantly shifting around, sitting on one foot or the other, leaning way over to one side, slouching ridiculously far down, leaning forward over the desk, and so on. The Aeron is all hard plastic, and incr

Has there ever been a breakdown of the profit margin on the Aeron, relative to the cost of the parts and labor? I'm genuinely curious....they seem to be very highly recommended by almost everyone, and the only real criticism seems to be the cost. Could they be priced to fly off the shelves at $500, or are they purposely priced higher to achieve that "prestige" quality, a la Apple?